256 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A mere clerk, unknown outside his office, though well known in 

 literature, could recall a governor; another, whose very name was 

 unknown till he died, recommended (that is, commanded on pain of 

 dismissal) a recent Governor of New Zealand to give away to his 

 ministers on a crucial exercise of the prerogative. 



Nor is it in matters of routine alone that the permanent officers 

 shape the course of colonial administration. A strong-minded minister 

 with a policy of his own, like Lord Grey or Lord Carnarvon, will force 

 his subordinates to carry it out, hut even here a still stronger-minded 

 Under-Secretary will often have his way. In 1848 Lord Grey, then 

 Secretary for the Colonies, summoned the aged and moribund Com- 

 mittee (of the privy council) on Trade and Plantations to advise with 

 him on the policy to be adopted towards the Australian colonies. The 

 report was drafted by Sir James Stephen and we have no difficulty in 

 discovering in its far-sighted proposals and masculine style the mind as 

 well as the hand of the author of the essay on 'Hildebrand.' It is often 

 said that a state department is inevitably wedded to routine. In the 

 report just mentioned the striking feature is the outline of a system of 

 Australian federation that is only now on the point of being realized. 

 So far was the pedantic Colonial Office then, as it has often been before 

 and since, ahead of its subject colonies. 



The other colonizing countries have followed the same line of devel- 

 opment. Beginning as direct delegations of the sovereign power to a 

 branch, first constituent and then separated, of the sovereign's council, 

 the department of colonies has been in course of time made an inde- 

 pendent ministry directly answerable to parliament. In bureaucratic 

 France the colonies since 1854 have been associated with the navy. On 

 the first of January, 1899, the empire on which the sun never set, 

 having lost the last of the dependencies that were once its glory, 

 abolished its colonial office. The sun had set on Spain to rise no more. 



